WiFi - Pitstops for Kids

Travel Gear We Use: GlocalMe WiFi hotspot for travel

Let’s get real about WiFi usage and fees while traveling internationally as a family. When we travel, we embrace being off-the-grid most of the time, but we absolutely need wifi at various times. Sometimes, this is due to necessity: we need turn-by-turn directions out of a foreign city, or we need to call the credit card company to check our damage (I mean, balance). Other times, someone needs to download an episode of Parks and Rec, or someone else really wants some quality Instagram time.

Staying connected in Iceland: using GlocalMe to work from locations like this.

We are a family of five, with older kids and teens who all have phones. Therefore, we have five phones to connect when we travel. Usually, we simply don’t connect them: the parents pay for WiFi, and the kids are basically SOOL. Why? Because our cell service plan charges us $10 per day for an international plan. Now, that’s not terrible, until you multiply it by five. $50 per day seems excessive, even for luxury travelers.

What to do? Invest in a WiFi hotspot for travel.

During our most recent trip, which took us through Iceland for ten days, we tried something new: a GlocalMe WiFi hotspot. For an initial investment of about $150-250, you get the hotspot, which you can then load with varying amounts for different destinations. Or, you can rent the device from Roaming Man.

I spent $20 for 3 GB of data in Iceland, which would ‘turn on’ (for lack of a better word) when I got to the country, and expire after 22 days. The hotspot can connect up to five devices (hey, perfect for us!) and you can add data at any time, either by ‘topping it off’ or buying a second package.

As I noted above, we use WiFi sparingly when we travel, preferring to enjoy the freedom from screen time (for the most part). We turned on our hot spot for about 30 minutes each day to check email, upload photos to Facebook and Instagram, and text, plus a few extra times to navigate when we needed directions, and our package of 3 GB easily lasted us 10 days. So instead of $50 per day for unlimited use we didn’t want, we paid $20 total for all of us to have a little bit of WiFi per day.

This is a perfect solution for us, and we plan to use the GlocalMe hotspot on many more trips.

Note: the hotspot is not intended for streaming video or downloading TV (it will, or at least will try, but it uses tons of data quickly).

How to load the hotspot with data:

Once you have a hot spot, go online to GlocalMe and register. It will ask you for your device’s registration number. Once you’re registered, you can add money by scanning the list of countries (I didn’t see any missing that were within the realm of visiting) and choosing a package or pay-as-you-go option. You can monitor your usage and add money with the free app or with the website. The device itself shows your data usage so you can monitor it there, too. The hot spot recharges with a standard USB cable (included) but during our 10 days, we never ran out of battery life.

How to buy:

The actual GlocalMe device is a one-time purchase of about $130-150, depending on where you buy. We recommend Amazon for the best deal.

Disclosure: We were given a GlocalMe hotspot device for the purpose of review. We paid to use it at our own expense.

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WiFi hotspot in your car: ZTE Mobley review

November 4, 2016 By Amy Hagstrom

AT&T reached out to us to product test their mobile hotspot, the ZTE Mobley. We said we’d give it a whirl on a seven-hour road trip, because I was curious about the pros and cons of having a WiFi hotspot in your car: after trying it out, would we want to keep it? Would we decide we needed it, or not?

We opted to set up the ZTE Mobley mobile hotspot in our Toyota van for use during a seven-hour road trip from Southern Oregon to Eastern Washington. I figured it was a good journey for testing: most of the route is on interstate, with plenty of cell towers close enough to be in range, with only occasional loss of coverage during mountain passes. It’s also a mixture of rural, suburban, and urban areas. It’s a typical road trip route for us here in the Northwest.

Note: this review is written for AT&T customers. If you’re not with AT&T, you can skip the set up instructions and scroll down to the part where we describe whether we think the hotspot is worth bringing on road trips.

Setting up the ZTE Mobley:

I tend to dread the ‘set up’ process when it comes to new technology, but as it turned out, setting up the mobile hotspot was easy-peasy. The ZTE Mobley is shaped a lot like an ink cartridge, and inserts directly into the OBD II connector port in your car (yeah, I didn’t know I had one, either). All you need to do is start your car’s engine, then connect your smart phone (or other WiFi-enabled device) to the network. To do this, you go through the usual steps: under WiFi on your phone, search for the WiFi network name and input password. Launch your browser.

Note: you can always manage your hotspot at http://attwifimanager.com.

On the road:

Once we were up and running, we could connect up to five wireless devices to the mobile hotspot, shared across main and guest networks. Parents: you can block certain devices from logging onto the WiFi, though it would seem to me that if you have activated the hotspot in your car, you’re ok with everyone using it. Just like any other WiFi network, you can change the password as desired.

The ZTE Mobley worked great for us on our road trip, during which we had three devices logged onto the WiFi. My teenaged sons streamed some Netflix TV shows, and I was able to work on my laptop, researching an upcoming travel story, when not in the drivers’ seat. Normally, we have a ‘no streaming’ rule on road trips, because we go through 4G data so fast when we allow it. The kids thought it was a nice treat to entertain themselves with Brooklyn Nine-Nine episodes.

Of course, there were a few places en route where we lost connection due to signal strength, but this was expected. We simply refreshed. I read criticism of the Mobley that sometimes, the signal dropped from LTE to 3G or lower, but we didn’t experience this problem.

So, do you need a WiFi hotspot in your car?

Potentially, a hotspot in your car can allow you or your kids to entertain themselves with gaming in the car, movies, TV shows, and other apps that require WiFi. I really enjoyed the ability to get work done. We were also able to stream audio books we didn’t want to have to download, saving us time and storage before our road trip. That said, in my opinion, a WiFi hotspot in the car is a nice luxury, but certainly not a necessity. We don’t personally allow screens in our car for short trips, but do allow them on long trips, making the hotspot desirable sometimes, but not all the time. With a two-year contract, however, you unfortunately can’t turn your hotspot on and off as desired.

My conclusion: I view car WiFi much like I view GoGo Inflight WiFi: well worth paying for when you need it, but not needed for every trip.

With a two-year contract, you can’t, unfortunately, turn your hotspot on and off as desired.

Cost:

If you decide a mobile hotspot is right for your family, it’s pretty affordable. If you’re an AT&T customer, the Mobley is free with a two-year contract. You can get 1 GB for $20/month or 3 GB for $30/month.

Disclosure: We tried the ZTE Mobley free of charge for six weeks, for the purpose of review. We are AT&T customers, and unfortunately for us, AT&T does not pay our monthly cellular bill.